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The (bourgeois) Korea Times published y'day the following report:

Hanjin Heavy locks factories

Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) imposed a lockout at its main shipbuilding yard and factories Monday, in reaction to a strike against a layoff plan by its union that started on Dec. 20. The company plans to make 190 employees redundant today as it previously announced.

The union pledged to continue their fight for the abolition of a massive layoff plan. On the same day, two more union members also joined a female protestor on a 50-meter-high crane in a shipyard in Busan, who has been there for over a month.

HHIC reported to the provincial labor authorities Monday that it had locked the Yeongdo shipyard and Dadaepo factory in Busan and its Ulsan factory to protect them from the union’s strike and protests.

The company and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) have been struggling against the layoff plan since December.

“Since they started the protest, they have caused financial and other damage to the company and related subcontractors,” an official from the company said. “It’s an inevitable decision to protect the company from illegal protests.”

Following the lockout, the company will only allow limited union members to enter the company’s properties on days of negotiation. It also ordered some 600 laborers to leave worksites immediately, and is considering calling the police to crackdown on illegal protestors.

Union members were in shock on hearing of the lockout, due to the unexpected move by the company.

“It’s too sudden. The company has not informed us of the decision yet. We learned it from news reports,” an official from the Busan office of the KCTU said. “We’re discussing necessary steps regarding the decision, but we’ll continue the strike until our demands are met.”

Kim Jin-suk, a member of the direction committee for the Busan office of the KCTU, has continued a protest from the 50-meter high driver’s seat of a crane at the company’s Yeongdo shipyard since Jan. 6.

She refused to stop the protest even after the court ruled she must leave the site and prohibited her from entering again. She now has to pay a one million won ($890) fine each day she continues the illegal protest.

She was joined by union members Moon Chul-sang and Chae Gil-yong on Monday.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/02/117_81390.html

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